Safe from Harm
by bulletproof
Summary: Faith goes killer on Angel in 'Sanctuary'.


**s a f e f r o m h a r m**   
by bulletproof (bulletproof_android@yahoo.com)   
characters owned by joss whedon. song by massive attack. 

**p a r t 1 : f a i t h . . . d i s s o l v e d g i r l**   


_Shame, such a shame, I think I kinda lost myself again.   
Day, yesterday, really should be leaving, but I stay…   
Fade, made to fade, I need a little love to ease the pain_

"I'm evil! I'm bad! I'm evil!" 

I scream it til it hurts my lungs, til I feel it reverberating in my limbs, til I know it in me and it pushes aside the sick little fear that twists in my stomach like friends with the pain he's not inflicting. 

I want to feel his fist on my jaw, want to hear the crack, the snap of bone, *my bone*. Want him to make it feel real, want my skin to be singing from the sting of the fight. But God, anything but this. 

He just stands there, batting away my hands like I'm a lost, feeble child, like I'm a thing worth saving. 

I'm not worth saving. I'm not. I'm bad. I'm evil. I'm a killer. I'm not worth saving. 

I can't do this without him. I can't be despicable, dirty and disgusting if he doesn't dance it with me 

He's not even bothering anymore and I feel the bile of petulance rise in my throat, of frustration. I barely know my voice as I hear myself pleading with him. 

'Please Angel, just do it! Just kill me!" 

And that's when I feel it slipping. The rage that once held me up like a spine slides out my body and I fall against him like a rag doll, tears flooding out of me like I can't get rid of them fast enough. 

He collapses us to the floor and the rain falls hard on our collective fallen figures. 

I'm not a thing worth saving. I'm not. 

* * * * * 

She itches inside me. 

This killer. 

The ride is long and I'm finding it hard to keep her down. 

Down girl. 

God, I get this image of shaking, shuddering me trying to hold this bitch down and it makes me wanna laugh. I don't though, because the slightest lapse could set her loose, so I stare hard instead at the dashboard in front of me. 

I'm staring so hard I don't even notice his hand til it's on mine and makes me jump for his jugular. 

"We're here." He says calmly though my hand is a mere pulse away from crushing his vocal chords. And he doesn't choke. God, he doesn't blink. Only waits for me to retract my fingers and holds the door for me if you please. 

I'm phased because it's been so long since I've had this. Kindness. Courtesy. Wikins was always full of that. 

My feet touch solid ground and his hand slides into mine like butter, like silk. Cool and calming and I expect it to be so, but the killer is only excited by the power that accompanies his light touch. I hate this bitch. 

Is it just me or does the office come alive at night? It buzzes of him, each shadow holding a trail of his scent, a touch of his thought. Items seem to glow in the dark as they bear their owner's mark, a bottle of Cordy's nailpolish, a box of Wesley's english tea. 

I wonder if something would glow of mine. 

I hardly have time to think of it as he ushers me into the elevator with a hand at the small of my back. Such a small gesture, but it feels like home. Like comfort. Like things I'd never experienced and thought I'd never have. And for the short second of the ride, the killer in me is content to lay silent. 

He throws the gate open and the room is a shock. 

I feel her everywhere. 

She comes before me, always before me, to weave messes around my senses. 

I want to wretch. 

I feel her breathing in this place and all over again, I'm where I don't belong. 

It slashes across my chest. I feel violated, but what else is new? 

And this time I do laugh. B always knew how to get into my skin. 

My body still tingles from when she was inside me, feels hollow as if it liked her better. Slut. 

And all of a sudden the hand that still lingers on my back is an all too familiar touch. I remember exactly what it felt like as her body remembered it, because you see, I've been inside her too. The comparison is too much. 

Her touch. My touch. All from the same hand, but God, the difference is blinding and I'm stealing again. Taking what isn't mine, what was never mine to take, cos like everything else within reach, it's got her name all over it. 

"I'll be close." He says and turns his back to me after somehow leaving me on his bed. 

I know this scene all too well. 

I feel my breath get short and the laugh escapes me before I have the sense to know it. It feels like hysteria, cos I'm hysterical or psychotic or something and they're all whispering or screaming I can't tell. Buffy, the Killer, the Slayer, the bitch, all of them or none of them all at once, it doesn't matter cos they're all saying the same thing. 

'Get outta here. Run. Fast as you can. You don't belong here. You don't belong here. You don't belong anywhere, but most especially not here. What? You thought you coulda made it here? That he, he with his big hands and warm bed that she's already been in, you thought he could give you sanctuary? You don't deserve it. You're nothing.' 

But I'm not nothing. I may be the psycho, the whore, the coward, the naked killer, but I'm not nothing. At least, I'm not because of the stake in my hand. 

I don't even know how it got there, though it looks suspiciously like a broken chair leg, but it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, it doesn't fucking-well matter cos I'm stabbing him. Once, twice and there after it's a frenzy, an insane high-density loop that sings with each repeat: 

'Killer. Killer. Killer. You're a beast. Like the rest of them. Like you should be. Like you've always been.' 

And *this* is home. **This** is comfort. This is real. This is fear and blood and sweat and anger, always anger, but it's all good because it's all mine as the killer takes me back with open arms. 

Kiler. Killer. Killer. 

I am the killer. 

I am the killer with blood on my hands, clothes, face and this is when I realise he's not a clean little pile of dust, that every single plunge and thrust was nowhere near the heart but leaves me bloody and broken all the same. 

He snaps me awake with his moan, drowning in the pool of his own blood, and the moan is mine, because I'm drowning too, only in fear. Fear like a well-worn vice around my heart, moulding perfectly to the old familiar fit and it's suffocating cos it's all *too* real, *too* comfortable. 

"Faith" he says and I desperately don't want it to be me. It can't be me again, it can't be blood between my fingernails again. 

It can't be and I want to run. I want to run. I want to run. 

And I do. 

_t o . b e . c o n t i n u e d . . ._**   
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   [1]: mailto:bulletproof_android@yahoo.com



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